Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to network communications and more particularly to system and method for communication in body area network system.
Frequency hopping is an established technique used in wireless communication systems to protect data transmitted by one device against interference from data transmitted by other devices operating in a same frequency range. Frequency hopping is also used to overcome other channel impairments such as fading. Conventional hopping techniques are inherent with overheads caused by constantly switching channels during a time duration in which the system is unable to transmit information. Moreover, channels are switched in such a technique even when there is no interference leading to a possibility of switching from a channel free from interference to a channel experiencing interference.
Recently, wireless communication networks are employed for medical applications such as wireless body area network (WBAN) for monitoring a patient's vital signs. Wireless personal area network (WPAN) may be used as a gateway by the WBAN to reach telemetry stations and/or repeaters, so that the monitors can communicate the information to a centralized location.
WBANs operate in close proximity because of the proximity of hospital beds to one another. Such close operating proximity can cause interference between the WBANs. Interference can also occur between sensor devices of the same WBAN. Further, there may be interferences from other sources such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee among other networks. Communication network protocols are employed in WBANs to overcome the interference.
The data outage specifications can require a transmission success rate of, for example, about 95% because of the critical nature of the information being transmitted by a patient's WBAN. Conventional monitoring networks employ re-transmission of data to increase reliability but at the cost of increased transmission delay and latency.